1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a filter and filtering system for filtering media and, more particularly, to a high temperature filter and a self-cleaning filtering system for filtering synthetic gas (syngas) in a gasification process.
2. Description of Related Art
In the synthetic gas (syngas) industry, it is known that any debris in a syngas system made from biomass will harm the catalyst used in the reaction process. Therefore, it is necessary to filter the syngas to remove this char and other particles typically found therein. Due to high temperature processing conditions, current gasification systems use filters formed from ceramic materials or tri-sintered metal. The use of these types of filters is often unsatisfactory, as ceramic filters can crack and sintered metal filters cannot be easily cleaned to remove the filtered particles therefrom. Additionally, ceramic material cannot be easily recycled. Therefore, the filters are often discarded after a particular period of time or after a particular number of filtering cycles. This discarding of the filters results in increased industrial waste and causes processing downtime during replacement.
Different methods and systems for filtering biomass or syngas materials are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,300,481; 7,056,487; 6,077,490 and 4,865,627.
There is a need in the art for a high temperature filter and self-cleaning filtering system that can sufficiently remove char and other particles from a media, such as biomass material, with a minimum amount of processing downtime that overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art.